2009 Challenger - The Dark Knight’s Dodge

We need some superheros in the car hobby. Brave men and women who will protect us from boring cars, and who will stand up to evil whenever it threatens to limit our imaginations. Enter Jon Sibal, a mild-mannered graphic artist by day and a caped crusader bent on breaking down the walls between car guys so that all can enjoy the freedom to have a sweet stance by night.

OK, no cape, but the rest is true. Jon works as an automotive illustrator and comic-book artist, and his ’09 Dodge Challenger reflects his interest in European and Japanese car culture as well as vintage Trans-Am racing, all wrapped up in a menacing black-and-bronze theme that would make Batman consider trading in the Tumbler for a Mopar.

Jon is a founding member of the SoCal Challengers club, but he wasn’t always into American cars. His early builds were BMWs, and while he liked muscle cars in theory, he never really saw himself owning one. In 2008, he entered a design contest promoting the return of the Dodge Challenger. His entry beat out more than 300,000 others, and the prize—a custom-built Challenger based on his illustration—showed up in his driveway. Awesome, right? Well, sort of. See, Jon’s drawing was of a wild black Dodge covered with realistic flames and stripes. Very cool on paper, but not exactly Jon’s personal style. “I always build black cars,” Jon said, “I’m not really a flashy person, and all of a sudden I’m driving around in this big car that’s all flamed up. It was one of the very first Challengers in Southern California, too, so it got attention just for that, and then the paintjob, I couldn’t even change lanes ’cause people would be pacing me on the freeway, it was nuts.”

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4/20Under the hood, Jon is always experimenting. The Challenger has had three different scoop and air-intake combos before he decided on the AFR Shaker. He briefly ran a supercharger, but preferred the reliability of the naturally aspirated Hemi.

The Challenger allowed Jon to make a lot of new friends in the car community, but he didn’t feel like the car represented his personal taste. He wanted a new look, but didn’t want to paint over the graphics that had garnered so much positive attention. Want cosmetic changes but don’t want them to be permanent? Sounds like a job for a vinyl wrap. Jon worked with Meguiar’s Wraptivo vinyl to design a matte-black finish with gloss stripes and carbon-fiber accents. Making those changes pushed Jon to go further, and he decided to bring in some of the brands and looks he liked from other influences. He wanted a “deep dish” wheel, similar to the wheels that American road-race cars ran in the early ’70s. He found the profile he was looking for in a Japanese wheel company, SSR Wheels. “I decided to go with SSR Wheels mainly because of how the five-spokes on the SP1 Professor were designed. They looked strong and beefy, not too thick but just a right amount of ‘chunkiness,’” Jon says. “They offered the correct bolt pattern and an offset that gave me the look I wanted.”

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6/20Like any good superhero car, the Challenger has some tricks to play, like a hideaway license plate. “The front end of the Challenger is one of my favorite parts of the car,” Jon says. “Adding a front plate is an eyesore, but living in Southern California, I’ve already had my share of no-front-plates tickets. Now I can easily retract and stow the plate when I’m parked or at a car show, then pull it out before I hit the road—all within a couple of seconds.”

Since 20-inch wheels under a raised body is a look only appropriate for monster trucks, the next change for the Challenger was figuring out the ground clearance. Jon wanted to go low. Feeler-gauge-under-the-fender low. He installed coilovers, but while that achieved the stance he liked, it pretty much ruined the car as a driver. “I’ve done that before, built a car so extreme you can no longer drive it,” he says. “I didn’t want to always be worrying about scraping and damaging the exhaust and undercarriage.” To give himself the freedom to drive, Jon looked to another Japanese company, Air Runner Suspension Systems. “[It] had a kit for the Challenger, and it just bolted in, no additional batteries or big compressors needed. I’ve been really happy with the results.”

7/20The Challenger’s interior is mostly stock, but Jon made some classic muscle-car additions (like the Hurst HardDrive shifter) and some modern ones (like the MyGIG nav unit and pillar-mounted Air Runner gauges).

When he first started working on the Challenger, Jon says he was concerned that he might not be accepted into the muscle-car scene. “The import and European car guys are very creative, but it’s a small scene and there can be a lot of drama. I didn’t know what to expect building my first American car.” As it turns out, he had nothing to worry about. “I couldn’t believe how welcoming everyone was. Not everyone liked every change I made, but the scene is so big, there’s room to be different. Nobody gives you a hard time.” As he researched more about Mopar history, Jon integrated some more retro style with his modern touches. Way before Chrysler made it a factory option on the new Challengers, Jon installed an Autoform Racing (AFR) shaker bubble and cold-air intake. He worked with a friend at A1 Autobody in Huntington Beach, California, to design a custom chin spoiler that is very T/A-inspired. “For the splitter, I made a pattern then had my buddy at A1 create it in polyurethane. The support rods are made out of aircraft aluminum, anodized and laser etched with milled swivel mounts. Those were an off-the-shelf product.” To keep from bashing that aggressive jut, Jon has a camera mounted above the splitter to help watch for curbs.

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15/20Jon won the Challenger in a design contest, but once it was delivered, he felt the flashy flames and red pinstripes were a little extreme for a daily driver. That’s when he had the idea to change the look of the car with a vinyl wrap, wheels, and suspension.

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Don’t go thinking this is a beauty queen that just creeps around parking lots waiting for a car show. We drove all over town, shifting that Hurst shortie stick and startling the commuters with the rumbling exhaust. We put the air suspension to the test when we went off-road to find the scene of the original Batcave in the hills just below the famous Hollywood sign. While we were shooting there, two German tourists asked Jon if he could take a photo of them with the sign in the background “and this beautiful car.” Good thing we were there to save the day.